KylieSmylie wrote:Don't risk it. Just Vaccinate before they have the chance to get parvo!!!

Personally, I work at a vet clinic and have seen 4 cases of parvo. Only two of the four cases made it. It doesn't seem to be very common here as a high percentage of people with puppies DO vaccinate. But there are a couple of things I want to say.

1. I would never attempt to treat parvo on my own. I just think a puppy should be on IV fluids, not sub-q fluids with round the clock care and IV antibiotics. Many parvo puppies can't keep down the adequate dosage of medicine and their little bodies can't handle having to digest ANYTHING.

2. Not only should all puppies be vaccinated, but in one of the cases I saw where the puppy died, the mother wasn't vaccinated and so the puppy did not receive any immunity from her milk. That case was very sad as the owners did everything they could, plasma transfusions etc, and the pup began seizuring and died.

3. There was a comment in one of those quotes about vets being "money-grubbing." I don't know if it is the same in other provinces or the U.S. but here veterinarians are often bound legally about what meds and supplies they are allowed to dispense, ESPECIALLY to new clients or to animals they have never seen before. Every vet I have met is in it for the love of the animals and like doctors, take an oath to do no harm.

All that being said, to any of you whose dogs have had or do have parvo, good luck, god bless and I hope they get better soon!! No pup should have to go through that

The title of this thread is parvo preventative tips but there aren't many in here...

Vaccinate! Puppies should get a distemper/parvo vaccination every three weeks starting at 6 weeks until they are 18 weeks. Just doing it once is not good enough - their immune systems are not fully developed yet and the shot needs to be repeated over and over during this period. This should be done by the vet, not by the guy down the street that says he has parvo shots. The point of using the vet is that the vaccines are coming from a reputable source, they are properly shipped and stored (if they aren't in the fridge they are useless), and they are properly administered. Adult dogs need to be vaccinated every year - they can get parvo too if not kept up to date.

It is a lot cheaper to vaccinate than to treat parvo.

Parvo lives an incredibly long time in the environment (on the scale of years) and can be anywhere that another dog could have pooped. So that means the park, the sidewalk, the pet store - any public area. That means that until the puppy is 18 weeks and fully vaccinated it should not walk on the ground in the sidewalk, park, pet store, vet's office waiting room - anywhere but its own house and own yard, and the houses and yards of people who have not had a parvo dog there before. The puppy should be carried to the car, inside the vet's office, etc. Ideally, you should not wear your shoes inside the house either because it can be carried in on your shoes.

Parvo is contagious between dogs. So puppies should only play with dogs that are healthy and up to date on shots. This is another reason they should not be at the park or on the sidewalk - they should not be meeting the dogs of strangers when you don't know if those dogs are contagious or have been vaccinated (and they can catch a lot of things besides parvo this way). It is important to socialize at this age, but you have to do it in a way that is safe for the puppy - through properly run puppy classes that require vaccinations and frequent cleaning of the class area, or through the vaccinated dogs of friends and relatives.

This is also a good time to make sure you have a relationship with a vet, and that you know the address, location, and phone number of your nearest 24 hour emergency vet. You don't want to be looking for this information after your puppy is sick. This is also an excellent time to get pet insurance or create and emergency fund for your dog. I have seen many people have to put their dogs to sleep for treatable parvo cases because they didn't prepare ahead of time.

In reference to the California Jack write-up, veterinarians have laws (and can get sued) to follow just like human doctors. You would not expect your doctor to let you give fluids and injections to your child in a life-threatening situation, so do not demand the same from your vet. There may be situations, once you have developed a relationship with a vet and (s)he is comfortable with your level of skill, that you can work something out, but it is ridiculous to go to a new vet and start demanding medical supplies. Also consider that there is a reason people go to school for 8 years to become a vet, and that you're not going to get the same results with feed store penicillin and tea. Again there may be situations where that's better than nothing but a life-threatening illness should be treated under the guidance of a doctor, who understands what is happening on a cellular and molecular level, and not an article on the internet.

Have to say that whether or not the advice in here is something that is medically advisable or not - I found the statements about vets and money to be REALLY distasteful and nasty.

Also I'm sorry but I felt that someone needed to step up and point out what seems to get ignored most of the time.

They have LICENSES to protect. Supplying non medically trained people with medical supplies WITHOUT a doctor-patient relationship is something that can affect their licenses to practice veterinary medicine - and perhaps even lose it.

This does not make them *money-grubbing*. It makes them people just like you and me that have their own mortgages, bills, and FAMILIES to take care of.

The reality is that people acquire pets without doing a speck of research or spending even a second to think about "what happens if something goes wrong?". That is their OWN fault. It's not the fault of anyone else. I'm not being judgmental when I say this, but if there is fault anywhere, it would be with the human that created the situation, and that is being purely objective.

Vets get approached ALL THE TIME by people claiming they can't afford this or that - never mind that they pop out a droid in the waiting room, pulled into the driveway in a beamer, flash their sparkling veneers, and run outside to grab a smoke. My point in saying that is those are CHOICES the owner has made in how to spend their disposable income. And it wasn't to the pet's benefit. Yes there are people that really can't afford it ... but if any vet helped out EVERY SINGLE person that claimed that - they would lose everything they worked so hard for, and they wouldn't be able to pay those student loans (have you EVER really SEEN the debt a vet student takes out of college??? It is STAGGERING!), the mortgage on the clinic, their own house and bills and caring for their families and their pets ... they all have to say "No. Sorry." *somewhere*.

And it REALLY bugs me to see people say if the vet CARED ABOUT ANIMALS ... they would treat the pet for FREE.

Okay yeah. Sooo, you gonna try that on the plumber? If you really loved pipes you'd do it for free! Or the electric company? Gee if you LOVED electricity you'd provide it for free. How about the dentist? Gosh if you LOVED teeth you'd treat my cavities for FREE! Or how about the doctor - golly doctor, if you loved people you'd treat my cancer for FREE!

Does ANYONE on this planet seriously think any of the above professions ought to work for free? Does anyone even try it? If not, WHY not? Why aren't THEY all evil money grubbing people when they say no, sorry that is the price for this service.

Add to that - excuse me, but it isn't the VET making money an issue. It's ALWAYS the owner of the pet. Let's turn it around and look at it from their perspective! They see that you pet is needing medical attention ... but that YOU (the sobbing loving owner who claims to love this creature) isn't willing to pay for it's care. Sure you love it more than life itself, but OMG if you are expected to pay for a procedure to SAVE it's LIFE - you decide that you'd rather take it home to "see if it will live". Lovely. Nice. or even better say "it's just a dog. I'll go home and shoot it, cheaper that way" And YES, vets hear that ALL. THE. TIME. The emotional blackmail is sickening. Imagine seeing a sweet dog wagging it's tail with that is sick that you can fix but the owner decides it's too much money and takes it home and the dog dies. And yet that same owner will blame the VET for caring more about money than the dog, but yet ... WHO decided to take the dog come because of *money* where it then died because it did not receive medical care?

Now imagine facing that every day, year after year.

From the vets point of view .. it is "Gee if you loved your pet, why aren't you willing to pay for it's medical bills?" It's NOT the *vet* making the choices, it's the OWNER. All vets have stories about owners that were homeless and they thought for sure that they would choose to euth and somehow these poorest of poor people - for REALS poor - somehow manage to find a way to pay. Because the pet meant their world, and that meant they would somehow find a way - they didn't make it the vet's fault, or whatever, they found a way to manage it.

It is just wrong to make the vets into villains, IMO, for just expecting to get get paid to do their job. Would ANY of you reading this give away your paycheck for *every* person that asked? Do you walk into the grocery store and explain that you need this food to live but that you don't have money - and get mad if the store says no?

And lets not forget too, if you want pets to be made into companions and not property - you wouldn't get the CHOICE to walk away and try to "wing it on your own", that choice would be removed.

Sorry - I mean I get it - I really do. Before I learned what being a responsible owner was, it never occurred to me to plan for medical care. And I even get that life throws curve balls. Right now for example if something happened to Toby I'd be SCREWED. Life hasn't been going ideally like I planned when I got Toby (when things had been stable for ten years) .. ever since I got him, EVERYTHING changed and our finances plummeted.

The difference is, is this time I know what I should be doing, and that I also know - if he needs medical care right now, I am flat out screwed, and will need to scramble, and am trying to build a buffer as a "just in case". But in NO way would I consider calling ANY vet a money grubber because they expect to be paid to do their job. Nor would I consider a vet that cared more about getting paid than saving the pet to not be a "REAL vet".

They ARE a "real" vet, but they are a vet that likely has been stiffed a hundred times, or watched the "poor person" drive off in a brand new car even the vet couldn't afford, dripping in expensive luxury items that had they opted to NOT but, they probably would have had the cash to pay and are obviously making enough money to afford the care, but the pet isn't as big as a priority to the owner to choose it over the newest trend. It's not right to malign someone trying to protect themselves from yet another scam artist.

Sorry - that just rankles me. It's not accurate, it's not fair, and the reality is, the real person making money an ISSUE isn't the VET - it's the OWNER. At least point the finger in the right direction.

In all fairness, it just needed to be said. Vets are good people, by and large, that make big sacrifices to attain their education, their skill, and their living. It is not their fault if the pet owner didn't plan for medical care when they acquired a pet, and they didn't cause the situation where the pet required medical care.

I agree with you 100% and couldn't have said it better myself. Owning pets is NOT a right, it is a RESPONSIBILITY. I understand that there are cases that are truly out of the control of the pet owner, but sometimes owners simply need to lie in the bed they made.

^completely agree with the post about vets. And honestly I think this sticky should be rearranged; not only is the title misleading but a sticky with blatant medical advice could be a liability for the forum if someone tries it and sues when their dog dies.

To become a vet you go to school for 8 years, accrue hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, and expect a starting salary of 55k when you start your first job at 26 years old. The people that wanted to get rich went into human medicine, or more likely didn't go into medicine at all.

You need to take her to a vet. The longer you wait, the sicker she could get.

As far as vaccine reactions go, occasionally, pre-treating with diphenhydramine before giving the vaccines, and splitting them up can help reduce chances of a reaction. (not that this advice is helpful to you now, but perhaps to others reading it). We recommend all puppies hanging out post-vaccine for 15 minutes to watch for signs of reaction. In cases where there HAS been a past-reaction, we often keep the in hospital for the day.

Try a different vaccine. Once the dogs reach adulthood they rarely die of parvo. Lots of people who vaccinate rigurously end up with parvo so it is not 100%. Lots of people don't vaccinate and some have problems while others don't.People should always have a decent first aid kit including fluids at their house.